Lord Drayson: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Derek Twigg) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	A central principle of the Government's approach to addressing the health concerns of veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf conflict is that there should be appropriate research into veterans' illnesses and factors that may have a bearing on these.
	As a key part of that research, the Ministry of Defence has sponsored a vaccines interactions research programme into the possible adverse health effects of the combination of vaccines and tablets given to troops to protect them against the threat of biological and chemical warfare. The programme, which has been overseen by an independent panel of experts and veterans representatives, consisted of three main studies. The first examined the interaction of certain vaccines in mice and reported last year on 21 July 2005 (Official Report, House of Commons, 117 WS).
	The second, and main, study has been undertaken at Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (Dstl) Porton Down and involved monitoring marmosets for up to 18 months following the administration of vaccines and/or pyridostigmine bromide (the active ingredient in nerve agent pre-treatment tablets). Partial results from the study, covering cognition, muscle function, general health and sleep, were announced on 20 July 2006 (Official Report, House of Commons, 37 WS). Papers reporting the remaining final results on the immunological aspects of the study have now been published online in the journal International Immunopharmacology and can be found at www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/15675769. The papers report that the immune system had not been compromised by any of the treatments and that there was no evidence of adverse health effects due to the administration of vaccines and/or pyridostigmine bromide. The study findings have been independently endorsed. Donald Davies, Emeritus Professor in Toxicology at the Imperial College, London, who chaired the independent group which oversaw the study, has commented that the study was well designed and conducted. Together with the expert immunologists from the panel, he supports the conclusion that the animals suffered no adverse health effect, despite exposure to exaggerated doses of vaccines.
	The final study examined whether staff from Dstl Porton Down who received multiple vaccinations during their employment have higher levels of sick leave than their unvaccinated colleagues. The findings, which are being made available today on the MoD website, show that staff at Porton Down who had received multiple vaccinations suffered no excess sick absence.
	The overwhelming evidence from the programme is that the combination of vaccines and tablets that were offered to UK forces at the time of the 1990-91 Gulf conflict would not have had adverse health effects. This has been a key area of concern among Gulf veterans and the results of the research should be reassuring to those veterans who have been concerned about the safety of the medical countermeasures that they were given. I hope, too, that it will reinforce confidence in the countermeasures that are offered today and in the future.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Tom Harris) has made the following Ministerial Statement.
	The Department for Transport has today published the north-west regional planning assessment for the railway (RPA), the fourth in a series of eleven RPAs covering England and Wales. The north-west RPA covers the whole of the north-west region.
	RPAs are the key link between regional spatial planning (including preparation of regional transport strategies) and planning for the railway by both Government and the rail industry and are designed to inform the development of the Government's strategy for the railway. They look at the challenges and options for development of the railway in each region over the next 20 years, in the wider context of forecast change in population, the economy and travel behaviour. An RPA does not commit the Government to specific proposals. Instead, it sets out the Government's current thinking on how the railway might best be developed to allow wider planning objectives for a region to be met and identifies the priorities for further development work.
	The north-west region has a population of just over 6.8 million , 11 per cent of the UK total, and the highest population density of any region outside London. While population levels are not expected to grow significantly, the number in employment is expected to grow. Growth in rail passenger journeys is forecast for the region and it is expected that there will be particular growth in longer distance journeys, particularly to London and the south-east. Within the region, the highest increases are expected to be in journeys to and from the metropolitan areas.
	Planning for railways in the north-west needs to take into account a changing economic and social context set out in the regional spatial strategy and regional economic strategy. Rail has a part to play in addressing national and regional government agencies' aims and delivering the objectives of initiatives such as the Northern Way, which have influenced the formulation of the north-west RPA.
	The RPA clarifies the role of the railway in the region, its contribution to the economy and its place in the overall transport system, setting out where greater rail capability and capacity will be needed over the next 20 years, and the options for responding to that need. The focus of the RPA is making better use of the existing network but it also draws attention to the need to improve access to stations, including interchanges, and the expected need to increase train capacity to meet forecasted growth in demand.
	Copies of the document have been placed in the House Libraries.